Dragon Form System
Dragon Forms are recurring features in the Breath of Fire series. Whilst appearing differently in each installment, the system allows the incarnation of Ryu to enhance his battle performance by (temporarily) transform his appearance to that of a dragon's, acquiring new abilities and effects depending on the chosen form. Appearances ''Breath of Fire During the course of the game, Ryu can acquire the ability to transform into nine separate dragon forms. Ryu can only transform into a dragon during a combat encounter, and will revert automatically if he is still transformed after ending a battle. Transforming requires Ryu to have a certain amount of AP to transform. After transforming, no further AP is used. It is also possible to revert Ryu back to his regular form after he has transformed by selecting the "Revert" option in his spell list. The first eight dragon forms allow Ryu's party members to stay in the battle. The final form, Agni, requires all other party members to be absorbed by Ryu in order for him to transform, and is unavailable if any party member is stunned. In addition, the final two forms will cause an image of the dragon form to be shown before he transforms into the dragon. Breath of Fire II In this instalment, the dragon forms are Abilities which consume all of Ryu's AP for one attack. Most forms are learned at story events, though one set of forms is learned in a secret location. Each dragon form has a Base Power, and the damage done by the attack is given roughly by * Powerx(current AP)/(max AP)^2 The exact damage calculation is given in Ben Siron's FAQ under "DragonDamage()". Elemental modifiers apply, except for a bug affecting the Drgn forms. The '''Puppy' forms (FirPuppy, IcePuppy, and T.Puppy) have a Base Power of 256, attack one enemy, and have the expected element. They are learned when Granny tries to fuse the Shaman Sana with Ryu. The Drgn (Dragon) forms (FireDrgn, IceDrgn, and T.Drgn) have a Base Power of 512, and attack all enemies. A game bug makes them not have elemental modifiers despite their names, so they are effectively identical. In order to learn them, Jean must transform into Frog form to swim in the lake to the west of WitchTwr, and then swim into the waterfall. Inside the party finds an elder of the Dragon Clan, who will teach the forms to Ryu. The Kaiser form (G.Drgn) has a base power of 999, attacks all enemies, and is non-elemental. It is learned during the party's battle with Ray. ''Breath of Fire III The system returns in this instalment as '''Dragon Genes'. Ryu is able to select and combine up to three Genes from a list of acquired ones. Upon selection, Ryu will transform into a dragon with the properties and form determined by the Genes selected. ''Breath of Fire IV Appearing in this installment are '''Dragon Gems'. Selecting one transforms Ryu, or the temporarily playable character Fou-Lu, into a dragon-human hybrid, with new abilities and stat properties. By using the unique Breath-attack given by a transformation, the Ryu will temporarily show the dragon's true form. What is unique about this incarnation is that dragon forms can be permanently upgraded into new ones by spending Game Points. Not all forms can be upgraded, however, and those who can are only able to do so once. ''Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter'' In Dragon Quarter, Ryu only has one dragon form, which he can access by using the D-Dive command he gains partway through the story. The dragon is immune to all damage from all non-dragon enemies (which are most of them), and his attacks are replaced by three slashing attacks called Vortex (which hits one enemy), Hurricane (which hits all enemies in front of Ryu), and Twister (which hits one enemy twice). In addition, Ryu can D-Charge to increase the damage of his next attack, and use his incredibly powerful D-Breath, which does more damage the longer you hold the button down. These abilities come with a price: a D-Counter that slowly ticks upward from 0% to 100%, at a rate of 0.1% per twenty steps, or 0.1% per combat round. Actually using dragon powers raises the D-Counter more quickly: Transforming costs 1%, remaining in dragon form costs 2% per round, D-Charging costs 2%, Vortex costs 1%, Hurricane costs 1.25% per enemy hit, Twister costs 1.5%, and D-Breath's cost depends on duration. When the D-counter hits 100%, the game ends just as if you'd died in combat (including losing half your Party Exp and Zenny), and there's no way to lower the counter, other than using SOL to go back to an earlier part of the game when it was lower. Breath of Fire 6 Category:Game mechanic